You can talk to an affirming pastor here by message or by voice, one conversation at a time, at no cost. The Ordinary answers these personally. If you are in immediate danger, the numbers below come first — they answer faster than any church can.
If you are in danger tonight, these answer faster than we can, at any hour. Nothing on this page is more important than the four numbers below.
What pastoral care is
Someone sits with you in the situation and does not flinch at it. You are not a case, and the goal is not to get you calm enough to be convenient.
What it is not
It is not therapy. It does not diagnose, it does not treat, and it does not manage a psychiatric condition. Anyone telling you a pastor can replace a clinician is selling something.
On referral
Sending you to an affirming clinician is a duty of this office, not an admission that you were too much. A pastor who keeps you when you need a doctor has failed you, not served you.
On what you believe
Nothing here requires faith, membership, baptism, or agreement. You may ask for a conversation while certain that none of this is true.
The Ordinary answers these personally. No intake queue, no triage form, no automated acknowledgement pretending to be a person.
You are given options: written back-and-forth at your own pace, or a voice conversation at a set time. Written is a full choice, not a lesser one.
You set the subject and the boundaries. There is no agenda waiting underneath it, no assessment being filled in, and no attempt to move you toward membership.
Your agenda — not oursIf once was enough, that is a complete outcome. You will not be chased, checked on, or added to anything.
If what you need is a clinician, a lawyer, or material assistance, you get names and a route rather than more conversation.
Plenty of people who write here share a device, live with family who read their mail, or are out in one direction only. Say so in the form and the instruction is followed exactly.
You can use an alias. You can ask for replies at a set hour, or with a neutral subject line, or from a name that means nothing to anyone looking over your shoulder. You can ask that no reply be sent at all until you write again. You can also ask that a thread be deleted, and it will be.
Records of pastoral correspondence are not published, not sold, and not shared across Bloom programs without your explicit consent.
“You do not have to arrive tidy. Arrive.”
Pastora Tori Matthews, Ordinary and Chief Pastor
A few sentences is enough. Include how it is safe to reach you and whether an alias should be used.
Nobody here is measuring whether your situation qualifies. If it is heavy enough to think about writing, it is heavy enough to write about.
Nothing is saved to your name. Press Esc to close.
If you are in danger tonight, these answer faster than we can, at any hour. Nothing on this page is more important than the four numbers below.